


and we'll say hello again

by whenthestarscamefalling



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Dead Aang (Avatar), F/M, How Do I Tag, Hurt No Comfort, I don't know, brief mentions of the cloudbabies, but not actually, but yeah aang dies in this fic whoopsie, i also stole something from wandavision because they're the other couple that makes me cry so, i hate thinking about aang being d word but i wrote about it anyway because i'm a sadist, i just like to cry, you're doubly warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 10:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29873259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whenthestarscamefalling/pseuds/whenthestarscamefalling
Summary: “Katara,” he pronounced each syllable carefully, as if savoring the sound of her name on his tongue, “I want to remember. And I need you to remember too.”Aang dies, and Katara finds something that triggers her memory. Loosely inspired by WandaVision.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	and we'll say hello again

**Author's Note:**

> I've been watching WandaVision, and one of the scenes from it made me think of Kataang—thus, this fanfiction was born. Hopefully the concept makes sense!

It was an oversight of planning, Katara thought, that she should be forced to pass the bedroom when leaving the guest quarters. Surely if there was room enough for a floor-to-ceiling window, there would be room enough for a door, and that would certainly be less undignified than forcing the guest to walk through the rest of the large house to exit. 

As she passed the window with its tightly-drawn curtains—they were a soft blue, she noted for the first time, the color of her childhood parka—her eyes skipped over the small, almost indistinguishable scuff marks lining the hardwood. Whose boots those marks must’ve been from… she averted her eyes.

Another turn in the winding hallway, and she was faced with the door. A breath caught in Katara’s chest, and she resisted the urge to let out a barking laugh at the irony. Here she was, the matriarch of the new Air Nation, and she was unable to breathe; here she was, the greatest waterbender that had been seen in generations, and her native element was starting to stream down her face, unbidden and unwanted; here she was, the wife—widow—of the not-last-not-here-not-living airbender, and all she could think was  _ I can’t get any air, I need air,  _ and then her eyes caught on the first carving on the door jamb.

TENZIN, 1 YEAR OLD

He had been the smallest of the three, and then he had been the tallest. Shooting up like a vine climbing a tree trunk, desperate for the warm fingers of the sun, Tenzin reminded her of his father. Fifty years ago, it must have been, he had done much the same. He joked to her later that he wished his growth spurt had come earlier—perhaps it would have been easier to defeat the Fire Lord if he didn't have to stand on the tip of his toes to grab his beard.

It was a long moment before Katara realized that she was smiling, the rivers of her tears settling in her canyon laugh lines. Emboldened by this and ever courageous, she wrapped her hand around the sturdy knob, turned it, and pushed the door open with as much force as she could muster.

She didn’t know what she expected. It certainly wasn’t for the room to look the same, bathed in the pale gold sunbeams of the early morning—whoever had covered the window in the hallway hadn’t dared to venture in here. The only difference was… the sheets. That was what it was—the sheets were rumpled. No one had fixed them since he had laid in them for the last time, since he had sat there, writing…

Katara rushed to the nightstand—his nightstand. She had asked him what he was doing in there—why he was fiddling with old photos and documents that hadn’t seen the sun since Bumi was born. He had told her, “So I don’t forget.”

“You’re not old enough to be forgetful.”

“No, but you are,” he replied with a cheeky grin. The bed shifted under his weight as he turned to look at her. The corners of his mouth raised in amusement as he observed her sour expression. He reached a tattooed hand forward to caress her face, and despite her irritation giving her the slight urge to bat his wrist away, she leaned into his touch. As she met his eyes, she found a heaviness that she had seen only a few times before. She supposed she should have known then.

“Katara,” he pronounced each syllable carefully, as if savoring the sound of her name on his tongue, “I want to remember. And I need you to remember too.”

She opened the top drawer so quickly that its contents near-flooded out. The first photograph they had taken together, their marriage license, the plans for the island, the plans for the house…

The note. He had changed the note.

He had written it fifty years ago: on the first page of this house’s design—their home’s design, his own design, how could she have possibly forgotten—was a red heart with the words, “To grow old in.” After four years of alternating between the Southern Air Temple and the Southern Water Tribe, he had shown this to her as a promise, marking the beginning of their future together in the city that they had raised from the ground.

Now it marked the end. In the heart, Aang had carefully lettered the words, “And we did.”

This time, Katara didn’t resist the tears.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Brief note to say that Aang's design of the house was purposeful, as he wanted to make the guests feel at home rather than separated—I just wasn't sure where to put that, so I omitted it instead. 
> 
> This is my first fanfiction, so I don't really know if it's very good at all. Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated!
> 
> (And if you'd like, follow me on Twitter @KlPOTARA—the "i" is actually a lowercase "L"—or on Tumblr @stars_came_falling.)


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